The Guard set to work in good humor and enthusiasm, for Owain was wise enough to rotate them in small groups back up to the top of the gap where the field kitchen dispensed hot meals and ale. Oilcloth tents kept out the rain, and bonfires burned under the dripping trees. More important, though, Owain himself joined the work here and there, plying a shovel, swinging an axe, pausing to encourage a new recruit. The men of Harlech worked as well, as did a small contingent of mounted troops that arrived late in the evening, led by Galan Lartes, the enthusiastic nephew of Duke Lartes of Vo.
“Dig away the road until it collapses down the cliff?” said Duke’s nephew. “Consider it done, my lord.” And he hurried down the road to where it curved above the river far below. His soldiers hurried after him, just as cheerful as their leader. Torches flared in the darkening night. The rain hissed on the flames and pattered on the muddy ground.
Footsteps crunched behind Owain.
“Twenty soldiers from Vo? That’s all?” Bordeall shook his head in disbelief. “And don’t tell me they’re digging with their swords. Stone the crows.”
“We don’t have any more shovels. And his uncle is marching to Hearne with two hundred footmen. Thule and Hull should’ve arrived at the city by now.”
“And what of Dolan and Vomaro? What of Harth? Harth can field the biggest army in all of Tormay.”
“I’ve no doubt of Dolan,” said Owain. “Of the others I still haven’t heard.”
“My lord!”
Three men hurried up the road toward them.
“Civilians,” said Bordeall.
“My lord,” panted one of the men. He whipped off his cap and mopped at his brow. “You can’t, you mustn’t. . . the road, my lord!”
“Breathe, man, breathe,” said Owain. “What is it that I can’t?”
“My lord,” said another of the three men, “you can’t cut the road! We’ve wagons down the valley with our families an’ the oxen can only pull so fast.”
“You’ve got thirty minutes,” said Owain. “Thirty minutes. Do you hear? Dump your goods, your bedsteads, your spare boots. Whip those oxen bloody! You know what comes behind you, don’t you?”
“We do, my lord!”
The three men gazed at him, stricken, until he snarled at them. They turned and hurried back down the road.
“Blast it all, Bordeall. How many people are still out there?”
“I wouldn’t want to say.”
Owain turned and strode away, back up the road toward the top of the gap.
“We do what we have to do,” he said over his shoulder.
“Nothing less, my lord.”
The first attack came just past midnight. It was at the foot of the gap, where the road began to rise up through the rock. They came out of the darkness and the rain in a silent rush. A mixed contingent of Guard and Vornish soldiers were taking a breather around a fire. The last collapse in the road was almost finished. The river surged along in its torrent and its sound was enough to mask the noise of the intruders’ approach. A Guardsman went down without even realizing his throat was cut. The young Vornish lord, Galan Lartes, kicked flaming embers into the face of the nearest attacker and flung himself to one side, his sword hissing free. The attack ended almost as soon as it had began. The marauders disappeared back into the night. Two of their dead were left behind.
“My horse!” said Galan. “Bring me my horse!”
“I’d advise not, my lord,” said a voice. It was Rane. He strolled out of the darkness and crouched down by the fire to warm his hands. “That’s what they want. Out in the night, that’s their territory now.”
“I suppose you’re right. Still, two of theirs for one. Not bad, eh?”
“They can afford the numbers.”
The men finished the last of the collapsed sections and then withdrew higher up the gap. Owain walked the road down to the bottom and then back up, inspecting the destroyed portions of the road and the fortifications dug behind each gaping collapse. Sharpened stakes protruded from the piled earth. Spearmen hid behind the earthworks, with swordsmen between them. Archers waited higher up on the slopes. It was far from perfect, but it would have to do. It was not impossible to traverse each collapse, for it merely meant descending down on the muddy face of the slope and then clambering back up, but it would greatly slow an attack. Slow them down enough for the defenders at the next higher earthworks to pour down a murderous fire of arrows. Still, numbers would tell in the end.
There were three more attacks that night. But the men were tense and ready. Each attack was driven off without difficulty or loss of life.
“They’re testing us,” said Bordeall. He ran his thumb along the edge of his axe. “This’ll be dull by midday if I cleave enough necks.”
“Examining the defenses,” said the Duke of Harlech. “That’s what they’re doing, and that’s what they would be doing if I were commanding them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get some sleep. Tomorrow shall be a long day.” He bowed to them and walked away.
“I think I’ll follow his example,” said Owain. “Your father’s a practical man.”
“That he is,” said Rane. “I’ve always found him so, and the best swordsman in Tormay, though some say Cullan Farrow is better. I would think it a close match.”
“Cullan Farrow is dead. All his family with him, save his son Declan.”
“Dead?” Rane’s face went still for a moment. “That is grave news. I’d hoped the Farrows would bring their swords to our battle. They were good people. Very good people. His wife was a distant cousin of mine. But the son is still alive, you say?”
“He rode south to raise the duchies. My hope is he’ll return soon with soldiers from Harth. We would profit greatly from their help.”
The morning dawned bright and cold. Frost gleamed on the dead grass. The sky was a pale blue scraped so thin that it was almost devoid of color. The sun looked down with its unblinking eye, but it provided no warmth. Owain threw aside his blankets and opened the catch of his tent. One of the cooks was stoking the fire. The scent of baking bread filled the air. The Duke of Harlech stood beside the fire, warming his hands. He glanced up.
“Gawinn,” he said. “I trust you slept well.”
“Tolerably.”
“A moment of your time?”
“Certainly, my lord,” said Owain.
The duke led him to the top of the gap, a grassy knoll a little ways higher than their camp. A few old oaks stood in bent age there, but otherwise the spot afforded a good view in all directions. The walls of Hearne were visible just before the horizon, with the sea a dim line behind them. To the east, the valley fell away in curves of greens and browns, the river bending and turning as it fled the far mountains in favor of the sea.
“Can you see, there, just on the edge of sight?” The duke pointed down the valley.
“I see nothing.” Owain rubbed at his eyes and squinted into the morning light. Still, he could see nothing. “Ah, fool that I am. Here.” He rummaged in the pockets of his cloak. “There’s a jeweler in Highneck Rise who has been experimenting with polished crystal. Most consider him crazy, but I think otherwise. He calls this a farseer.”
Owain held the little crystal up to his eye and peered east. The valley swam into focus. He could see the river in startling clarity, the ice floes bobbing on the current, the broken and blackened branches of the willows. He looked farther east, over dead cornfields and meadows of dying bracken. And then, almost on the edge of where the crystal itself could aid him, he saw it.
“Burn the day!” he swore.
He saw an army marching. A dark mass flowing over the fields and slopes of the valley. Marching west in rank upon rank. Unending files of soldiers in locked and perfect step. Banners fluttered in the wind. Sunlight gleamed in countless tiny flashes upon spearheads. It was a dreadful sight, the horrible certainty in how the vast formation moved, marching as one, closer and closer with every step to where he stood. The gap, despite its height and the
harsh rocky terrain of its steep slopes, felt small and defenseless. Surely that army would flow nearer and nearer and then, like a terrible tide, sweep right over them.
“Rather a lot of them, isn’t there,” said the duke.
“You must have the eyesight of a hawk,” said Owain.
“No, but I pray the hawk will come soon, him and his boy. We need them, for it’ll take more than swords to fight the Dark.”
“They’ll come. They’re the reason we’re here. I knew this day was coming, and now I truly know. But an army such as this? This is worse than I dreamed. I can’t begin to estimate their number.”
The duke of Harlech smiled coldly.
“Even with such great numbers, they can still die, one by one.”
“If only to buy time.”
Owain hurried back to the camp. His mouth tasted sour and he hunched his shoulders against the cold wind.
“Messenger! Find me a messenger!” he barked. A young boy hurried up, stiff and ridiculously proud in his new uniform. “Ride to Hearne immediately and then bring me word on the rest of the duchies. I want to know if they’ve arrived, how many men. Vo and Harlech I know, but I want word of the others. Don’t spare your horse. Tell ‘em we’ve sighted the enemy.”
The boy nodded, wordless, and then ran off.
The sun ventured higher into the sky and the soldiers on the gap gathered at the top of the rise. They looked east, staring in silence, squinting into the morning light. There was a dreadful tension in the silence. It was not fear as fear is commonly known; rather, it was a hungry, nervous anticipation, a detestation of inaction, a desire to have the enemy already attacking, even if it meant death, for then there would no longer be this terrible wait.
The eastern approaches of the valley were soon black with the marching masses of the army. The wind blew along their path, fleeing at their advance, and it brought to those on the heights of the gap a rumbling thunder of bootsteps, of creaking armor and stepping horse. The noise sounded like the growl of some strange monster, a being more massive than giants or dragons, growing louder and louder as the wind sought to escape the valley. Storm clouds hurried along in the sky so that as the ground darkened with the approaching masses of soldiers, so did the sky. They were nearer now, much nearer.
“Shall we give these scoundrels a good beating, my lord?” Galan Lartes sauntered up to Owain’s side, spear in hand. “My lads are champing at the bit. I’ve half a mind to ride out and tell them to hurry it up.”
“Is all Vo of such good humor?” asked Owain. “Would that I had a hundred more of you here, for a cheerful heart is a brave heart.”
“Aye, my lord. I think it chiefly the fine wines we make. And that we are a little duchy. We do not have the pomp of Hearne or Vomaro to put a smile on things. So we smile for no reason, and we’ve gotten into the habit, despite the bad weather or unwanted company.”
At these words, Galan bowed mockingly to the east. Owain laughed, but as he glanced down he saw that the young man’s knuckles were white as he gripped his spear.
The attack came just after noon. It came like a wave of the sea, a dark mass that surged toward them, roaring and towering ever higher. At least, it seemed so, for the morning light dimmed as if a shadow had fallen upon the sun. Arrows hissed into the wave, but they vanished like stones thrown into the sea and with just as little effect.
“Steady, men!” shouted Owain. “Hold your line! Hold!”
The wave hit the fortification with a splintering crash, a rending of metal on metal, of timbers splintering and snapping, of screams and shouts. The thin line of the defenders reeled back and then flung themselves forward, buttressed by the men of Harlech under the command of the duke’s son, Rane. He gave no command to his men, but they wheeled and turned with him like one living creature that bit and slashed at the flanks of the dark wave, dashing to wherever the defenders teetered on the brink of collapse. Arrows whipped down through the air from the archers higher up on the slopes. The dark wave rolled on, smashing and roaring against the fortifications. It tore away more and more, each time it returned, the ground slick with blood and mud.
“Is the sky falling as well?” said Bordeall.
He looked up, his face blanching near white. His axe was smeared with gore in his hands. Owain also looked up and thought he was going mad. It seemed as if the dark clouds overhead had been torn into bits. Little dark spots falling from the sky. Dark spots moving erratically. No, flying. They were flying.
“Birds,” he said. “They’re birds.”
“Crows,” said Bordeall.
“Archers!” shouted Owain. He motioned over one of his sergeants. “Have the archers look to the sky.”
“Aye, my lord.”
The man clambered up the slope to where the first line of archers crouched among the heather and the rock. Owain could dimly hear him bellowing orders over the crash and tumult of the battle. It was not a moment too soon. With a high-pitched piercing cry, as if calling with one voice, the crows fell. They dove down through the sky, through the rain, falling like spear points. The arrows met them and the sky was filled with feathers and blood, but the archers were not enough. The sound of the crows’ impact was like steel on steel. Men died without seeing their death. They died with broken helms, pierced necks, and blind faces. The line faltered behind the fortification.
“Hold!” shouted Owain. “Hold the line! Lartes! Get your men up! Get your men up!”
“There’s our enemy,” said the duke of Harlech, pausing beside Owain in the midst of battle. His sword ran red with blood. “Look there.”
Lannaslech pointed. Far beyond the surging masses of soldiers facing them, the ground down along the riverbank rose at one point. It was a gentle slope, but enough to create a rise that lay bare. The advancing army split and flowed around it. A horse and rider stood upon the rise. The rider was armored all in black, and the horse was just as black with shining coat. Its eyes seemed to gleam red, even at such a distance. There was a strange and awful stillness about the rider. A heaviness, a ponderous certainty and implacability of purpose in how that black helm stared across the distance. But then the howling wave crashed again upon their line and they had no time to consider the rider.
The line wavered, stretched, held for an agonizing handful of seconds, and then broke. It broke in death and blood and men trampled down into the wet earth. The ragged remainders retreated back up the gap, back up to the next fortifications and the fresh thin line of steel waiting there. Further down the valley, the dark horseman rode forward, and the sea of his own army drew back, keeping well clear as if they feared the rider, feared whatever face stared from behind that black helm. The horseman rode up to the first ruined fortifications and halted. The air seemed colder. The day darkened, as if there was no longer any sun behind the clouds. Both sides stood in silence, and it was a silence born of equal dread for the solitary horseman.
The silence was broken by the twang and hiss of an arrow. The arrow came from somewhere higher up on the slopes of the gap. Higher and behind Owain. His eye caught and held the shaft’s flight. The arrow sped with perfect aim, straight at the rider’s helm. It struck with a tremendous clang. Steel point on iron. But the rider did not move. It was as if he were carved out of stone. Immovable, unalterable, as heavy and as unshakeable as the earth itself.
Lay down thy arms.
Owain could not tell if the voice spoke out loud or whether it was only in his mind. The voice was ponderous, slow, almost whispered. A voice oddly weary with its own dreadful weight. Owain staggered and slipped down onto one knee. Around him, his men waited in tense expectation, gazing down the muddy and trampled heather at the army lapping against the bottom of the gap like the sea. Owain did not think they heard the voice.
Bid thy men lay down their arms. Let them open their hands in peace to death, for the Dark has come to Tormay. The night doth fall here. It is a night that began in long ages past, before the light shone forth, and it hath no end.
There is a rest deeper and better than sleep. Death.
“Steady,” said the duke of Harlech, standing alongside Owain.
“Can you hear him?” said Owain. He drew his shaking hand across his brow.
“Somewhat. I think he speaks only to you, but I can hear enough. I’d rather face the army before us alone than that horseman.”
“There’s a face behind that helm, surely,” said Owain. “There must be. I feel his gaze. But maybe there’s nothing there at all. Just an empty helm. Where’s Jute?”
And then the earth shook beneath them. It heaved and trembled and shuddered. The muddy ground slid across itself in a whisper, then a rush, then a gathering roar. The rocks on the heights of the gap tumbled down, and the embankment above the river collapsed into the water below in a confusion of spray. There were shouts and screams and the frantic yells of men dug in behind the various fortifications as the earth fell away, plunging them to their deaths in the icy water below. The last thing Owain saw was the horseman. He sat immovable on his steed, as before, the black helm staring up at the slopes of the gap. And though the earth shook around him, he and his horse did not move at all. The horse and rider were like a statue. The sky teetered and tilted over them all like an endless expanse of frozen iron, of hammered darkness that had locked away the sun. Something struck Owain a tremendous blow on his head and he knew no more.
His skull ached. It felt as if the bone had been shattered like an eggshell. He tried to reach up a hand but could not. And then his mind cleared and Owain came back to full consciousness, coughing and gagging. The ground moved and shook beneath him. No. Not the ground. A galloping horse. He was slung over a horse, jammed down against the pommel with the mane flying in his face. Someone gripped the back of his coat with an iron hand.
The Wicked Day Page 28
